Intel Corporation
Apparatus and method for using alpha values to improve ray tracing efficiency

Abstract:

Apparatus and method for encoding sub-primitives to improve ray tracing efficiency. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: a ray generator to generate a plurality of rays in a ray tracing graphics pipeline; a sub-primitive generator to subdivide each primitive of a plurality of primitives into a plurality of sub-primitives; a sub-primitive encoder to identify a first subset of the plurality of sub-primitives as being fully transparent and to identify a second subset of the plurality of sub-primitives as being fully opaque; and wherein the first subset of the plurality of primitives identified as being fully transparent are culled prior to further processing of each respective primitive.